


My Lighthouse

by JK Ashavah (ashavah)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: But also Depression because the Capitol, Comfort, Depression, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Finnick Odair-centric, Fluff, Forced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, In Bed, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fill, Victors Have Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:53:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28877508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashavah/pseuds/JK%20Ashavah
Summary: Finnick Odair isn't used to being in a relationship.Nor is he used to writing poetry actually being a useful talent.On a stormy morning in District Four, those things happen together.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	My Lighthouse

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: This was supposed to be in response to an old prompt from solitudeprompts on tumblr, for ❝ do you want to just stay in bed today? ❞.
> 
> It's not really a response to that prompt anymore, but that's ok, because it's something else instead.
> 
> Thanks to ashen_key for her advice, support, and inspiration, and for Tulla Dearborn who doesn't like Finnick much. 
> 
> I don't own anyone or anything here I'm just borrowing them for a while.

He's not sure if it's the thunder that wakes him, or the dread.

Or maybe it's just time to wake up, because the last few weeks have been a dream. A dream so unexpected that sometimes, he's had to prove to himself it's real. He keeps expecting it to disappear, to find one morning that Annie's not there with him, that it was all just some way of avoiding thinking about tomorrow and the Capitol.

This morning, it takes a moment. He's in his own room, his own bed, half-dressed, the other half of the bed empty. That used to be a relief; this morning, he reaches out for someone who's not there. But she hasn't gone far. Annie's silhouette is outlined against the grey of the pre-dawn world. She's standing by the window, staring out into the rain.

Given that by this time she's usually off on her morning run, it's not hard to guess what she's thinking.

"S too wet," he says, his voice coming out blurry with sleep. 

Finnick pushes himself up off the mattress and out of bed. 

If it were anyone else in the room with him, he'd slink across the room and wrap his arms around her from behind. But victors startle easily, Annie more than some.

He waits until she looks over her shoulder to him and he can see her face pale in the beginnings of the dawn light. Only then does he step across to her and wrap his arms around her waist.

"Don't go."

"I'm not gonna run in that," she says, pulling a face. "'Sides, might get struck by lightning."

"No. I mean stay _here_. Today. With me."

Her eyes look unfathomably dark in the low light, and he's overcome with the need for her. Not physical need, but the need for her presence. For _this_ , holding her and being with her, seeing her smile and hearing her laugh and doing anything not to think about tomorrow.

"What, all day?"

She tries unsuccessfully to stifle her giggle in her hand.

"Come back to bed."

He's probably imagining the flush in her cheek; he can't see well enough for that. He’s _not_ imagining the way she leans back against him, her shoulders pressing against his still-bare chest. He presses a kiss her behind the ear. Her breath hitches, then she laughs again and squirms away from him.

"Should I keep my clothes?"

"I think we can keep you warm without them," he says, letting a smirk show for just a moment. He catches the hem of her shirt and tugs it, pulling it off over her head as she lifts her arms to help. 

His bed is very similar to hers, a big luxurious thing that came with the mansion six years ago. But he has expensive cotton sheets and thick blankets, and he knows how comfortable it can be, because there have been so many days he's spent there wrapped in warmth when doing anything else was too much. 

Having Annie here is a much better reason to stay in bed. She shimmies out of her pants lets Finnick grab her and to pulls her back into bed. He wraps his arms around her and rolls until they're on their sides. He kisses her nose, her forehead then, languorously, her mouth. He hums against her lips, grinning, shifts himself to rest his head on the pillow. One of his legs rubs against hers, slipping between them.

The storm can do whatever it wants outside. They're shut in their own little world with just each other. Annie's smile is as warming as her body, and he feels like all he wants is _this_.

He lets out a long, contented sigh, and lets himself drift back off to sleep.

When he wakes, he rolls over, yawning, and finds Annie sitting up next to him, engrossed in the book that had been on his bedside table.

His book.

His third book, actually, not that it really matters. He wrote it because the Capitol wanted another book. Nothing in it actually means anything. He'd chosen poetry as a talent because he'd read some books that Mags had managed to get from somewhere, and he'd liked what he read. But the Capitol didn't care whether what he wrote was good.

He'd never hadn't really intended to take writing poetry very seriously if he didn't have to. Some victors do; some don't. Annie is a studious, careful practitioner of the glassmaking she'd taken up last year, taking pleasure in the ability to change and control the shape of her artwork, in the realization of patterns she'd imagined in a piece of art. Besides, it means she gets to work with fire and heat, and that seems somehow soothing to her.

Finnick, though, has only ever written soppy, stupid poetry for the Capitol. That's all he'd ever meant to write, but one day when his thoughts were too much for him, he'd learned that he, too, could burn out some of his feelings in the blaze of creation. So he'd taken to secretly searing the poison in his mind onto paper, leaving himself spent but soothed by the process.

Nobody's ever seen those poems. He burns them as soon as they're written.

The ones Annie's reading are his typical trash, compiled into a volume that he's been assured everyone in the Capitol is longing to read. That's what Tulla Dearborn, Four's escort for the Games has said, and Tulla's not the sort to flatter him with false niceties. Tulla, in fact, doesn't particularly like Finnick, but she appreciates his value for Four and, therefore, for her. 

Many of the victors escape having much attention paid to their talent, but like everything Finnick does, he's always been too popular for that. The Capitol wants his poetry, and the Capitol wants him to talk about it. Which means that the newest round in the constant cycle of Games gossip and news will be Finnick talking about his third book at a series of events in the Capitol.

He doesn't want to think about where he might be sleeping tomorrow.

He groans and rolls closer to Annie, pressing his head against her shoulder and pretending to read.

"This is what they're puttin' out soon?" she asks, still reading, as she reaches up to run a hand through his hair.

"Mhm."

She bites her lip and glances from the page to Finnick.

"Um."

He laughs. "Don't worry, I know. It's dreadful."

"I guess your fans. Um. Will buy it anyway." She says it almost tentatively, like she usually does when she says anything about his admirers and devotees in the Capitol.

"Perks of fame. They want anything with my name on it."

 _Anything_. The thought makes him shiver.

Anything. Any time he's there. And he'll be there, tomorrow, because of this stupid book. 

"You're not. Taking it seriously?"

There's a little sculpture of a fish on the windowsill, where the morning light shines and scatters across the floor. It's beautiful work, and it was a gift from Annie a couple of months ago, when she was first starting to make enough progress with her glassmaking that she was happy with her work. She's been improving over the last year, and he loves the little thing, did even before they'd become lovers.

People think Annie doesn't take things seriously because she laughs at the wrong times or seems to stop paying attention sometimes. Anybody who really knows her -- Finnick or the other victors in Four -- knows that if anything, she takes things far too seriously.

That's never been an accusation leveled at Finnick, famous for his fickle affections.

"I _can_. I just don't for them."

He takes the book out of her hands and closes it. Annie is watching him as he rolls to put it back on the table. She wraps her arms around the lump in the sheet where her knees are, her head tilted to one side.

"It's tomorrow, isn't it?" She swallows. "That you're going."

Finnick buries his face in the pillow. It swallows his response, but he nods his head against the fabric.

"Right." Her voice is subdued, but after a moment he can feel her hand stroking his shoulder. 

Finnick lets out a deep sigh. But Annie's hand stays there, and eventually he rolls back to face her.

"I have to. They need me for their launch events."

He can't hide the bitterness.

He hasn't been back to the Capitol since he and Annie started this relationship. He doesn't want to leave. He doesn't want to be away from her, to give this up for the days he'll be gone. But worst of all, now he knows exactly what he's been faking for so long. What his patrons have stolen from him.

This. All of it. The warmth of Annie's touch, the way it sets off sparks under his skin like none of them ever did. The feeling of falling deep into her eyes and never wanting to come out. Of wanting her so much that their bodies feel like they're melting together and can never come apart. He'd only ever pretended at any of that, because he'd had to. 

He'd hated it and hated himself, but he'd never known what he'd been faking. Somehow, the thought seems worse now.

"Annie," he says, and she settles back down to face him. He reaches out and rests a hand on her hip. It's Annie, it's Annie. This is safe. For today.

But tomorrow, he has to run into someone else's arms. 

He doesn't want to think about it. 

"There's something you should know," he says, eventually. "You're going to see me on TV. In the Capitol."

"I know," she says, her voice small. "Whenever you go, there's always things about you back here."

Finnick runs a finger around her forehead, tracing the line of one of her curls and twisting it around his fingertip. A gust of wind outside drives the rain hard against the window. Finnick shivers, though the window is shut firmly against the rain.

"You didn't mean that, did you." Annie's question is more of a statement. Finnick untangles his finger, letting his response form in his mind as her curl reforms.

"I mean that it'll be the same as it always is. There'll be some Capitol notable that I'll go off with and everyone will be wondering how long it will last and talking about it until suddenly it's somebody else and they're talking about that instead. Exactly the same."

He's never outright told her what happens when he goes to the Capitol. He can never bring himself to say it out loud to her.

But he'll always remember the night on her Victory Tour when he'd slunk back onto the train stinking of perfume and patron and she'd begged him for help not to be caught in the same misery he was.

Annie's smart. And she's a victor. They all learn quickly to understand understated comments and vague suggestions from each other. He'd learned it too. The cost for him had been his body, and the cost for Annie her mind. Or the appearance of her mind. She's never been as crazy as anyone thinks, just like he's never been as dissolute as they think.

Annie grabs Finnick's hand and squeezes. He can see the thoughtfulness in her eyes as she meets his gaze for a moment, then shifts closer to him and presses her leg against his.

He doesn't say anything.

He's learned long ago that her arena was enough of a shock to her confidence that sometimes she needs to run things over in her mind before she can say them. He's learning to recognize when those moments are. 

"Are you gonna be all right?"

Her fingers slip between his, a silent reinforcing of the worry in her voice.

Finnick keeps his expression neutral as he studies her. Her hair is still mussed from the night before, but she's washed off most of yesterday's makeup at some point while he slept. (She's still beautiful without it.)

He sighs and settles his head a little closer to hers on the pillow.

"I have to be."

She frowns, and he leans forward to kiss her nose. Her lips twitch, like she's trying not to smile, but she doesn't look reassured.

"I'll have you," he says, pressing his forehead against hers. "I've ... never had something worth coming back to before. That's what matters."

He can get through the time he has to be away. He can survive whatever Snow wants him to do, if he can just hold onto that. To _this_ , Annie's voice soft in the quiet of the huge house, her arms around him, her lips against his, losing himself and everything he hates in her.

If he can steal this forbidden thing he _wants_ , he can survive the rest. She can bring him home safe.

"Besides, I get some of my own back."

The earnestness that had been in his voice slips away, and he grins at her, clinging to the lifeline out of the depths his mind had been floundering in. She doesn't know about the secrets he steals, but she does know the ridiculous gifts of jewels and other precious things that soothe his patrons' guilt.

Annie grins back.

"Bring me something," she says. Then she reaches across to push him onto his back and sprawl herself across his chest, simple, possessive, but entirely undemanding. She kisses his neck, then his jaw, and it's not long before he's lost in her again, and nothing else matters.

But there's one more thing he can steal from the Capitol. And tomorrow, he steals it. A copy of the stupid book he'd written, taken from a signing event. But it's not the book he really wants to give her.

It's the inscription: a poem, written carefully over several nights then copied out onto the flyleaf. 

A love poem, the first one he's ever _meant_.

 _My lighthouse_.


End file.
